ASUS ROG Strix Z270I Gaming Review
Category : Z270
Published by Luca Rocchi on 28.02.17
With the ROG Strix Z270I Gaming, ASUS has a well equipped mini-ITX motherboard in its portfolio, which comes with a bunch of interesting features. There are for example two M.2 Gen 3 x4 slots and an internal USB 3.1 connector. Apart from that ASUS refined the design of their STRIX Gaming series motherbards, removing all the orange accents that we've seen on X99 STRIX Gaming products.
Looking at the Z270 line-up from ASUS quite a few things have change compared to the previous generation and one of those things is the “ROG STRIX” series. There is now a complete lineup of STRIX Gaming motherboards and one of those is the ROG STRIX Z270I Gaming, which is a mini-ITX board that features a new design and RGB lighting.
The ROG STRIX Z270I Gaming is an ITX form-factor motherboard. As with all other STRIX Gaming series motherboards this mini-ITX model comes with the AURA feature as well, allowing you to change the illumination of the board from within Windows. In the case of expansion slots there is one full-sized and metal-strengthened PCIe slot and two M.2 slots. Since there is not much space available on mini-ITX motherboards to begin with ASUS created a PCH heatsink that doubles as a cooler for the first M.2 drive. The second drive can be mounted in the slot on the back-side of the PCB. Having a quick look at the SATA connectors we find four of them supporting the SATA-III standard.
Like other ROG STRIX motherboards the heatsinks feature a dark silver paintjob and RGB backlight. Looking for additional features we find USB 3.1 ports internally and externally, a high-quality power design and a good mix of connectors at the I/O panel. There is a Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac module that also supports Bluetooth v4.1. At the moment this is the only Z270 mini-ITX motherboard available from ASUS. So far there aren’t any rumors on a possible Maximus IX Impact, which would have actually been the mini-ITX motherboard we would have expected.
At first glance this is certainly a good looking motherboard and we're more than curious how this little thing performs in our benchmarking parcours.
Specs and Delivery
| Chipset | Intel Z270 |
| Memory | Dual Channel DDR4, 2 x DIMM, Max. 32 GB DDR4, 4133 (O.C) / 3866 (O.C.) / 3600 (O.C) / 3466 (O.C.) / 3333 (O.C.) / 3300 (O.C.) / 3200 (O.C.) / 3000 (O.C.) / 2800 (O.C.) / 2666 (O.C.) / 2400 / 2133 Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory |
| Slots |
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| Sound | SupremeFX Impact Audio 8-Channel High
Definition Audio
|
| Storage |
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| Network |
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| Internal Connectors |
|
| Extrenal Connectors |
|
| Forfactor | Mini-ITX (17cm x 17cm) |
| BIOS | Bios (128 Mb flash ROM, UEFI AMI BIOS) |
- 1 x User's manual
- 1 x M.2 2242 mounting kit
- 1 x I/O Shield
- 4 x SATA 6Gb/s cable(s)
- 2 x M.2 Screw Package
- 1 x CPU installation tool
- 1 x Supporting DVD
- 1 x ASUS 2T2R dual band Wi-Fi moving antennas
- 1 x ROG Strix stickers
- 1 x 10-in-1 ROG cable label
- 1 x Extension Cable for RGB strips (80 cm)
- 1 x Panel cable
- 1 x ROG coasters
Features
Digi+ |
ASUS has been using digital power designs for almost a decade now and with this particular board their not making an exception. A closer look reveals there is a PWM controller that has been labelled ASP1400BT, which is in charge of regulating ten phases. These phases are based on 4C86N Dual N-Channel MOSFETs from On Semiconductor and 10K capacitors. Together they make for a high quality power design. |  |
ASUS Fan Xpert 4 |
ASUS Fan Xpert 4 provides customizable settings for fans that have been attached directly to the onboard fan headers. It allows you to tune your fans automatically or manually, easily allowing you to either configure a silent or a high-airflow system. |
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AURA RGB Lightning |
Aura is an ASUS software tool to control the onboard RGB lighting or RGB LED strips that have been connected to the onboard AURA headers. It allows you to select any color which is in the RGB spectrum and therefore enables users to individualize the looks of their motherboards. |  |
SupremeFX |
SupremeFX is ASUS's interpretation of high quality onboard audio. Supporting up to eight channels, the SupremeFX solution received shielding from other onboard components. Apart from that there are high quality Nichicon capacitors, gold-plated connectors, an ESS9023P digital-to-analog converter as well as a RC4580 buffer. |  |
USB 3.1 Front-Panel Connector |
Right next the I/O ports there is a USB 3.1 front-panel connector, which has been wired using two PCIe Gen 3 lanes and therefore offering up to 2GB/s bandwidth. Should you own or plan on buying a case with such a connector, then you'll be able to use it combination with this motherboard. |
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Layout
ASUS decided to give the ROG Strix Z270I Gaming a color scheme that's kept in black and grey. The PCB is matte black, the VRM aluminum heatsinks are silver-greyish the PCH cooler is black with a sheet metal cover that's received the ROG logo in silver. Apart from that there is the RGB lighting, which ASUS calls AURA. It allows you to make the board shine in your preferred color. The layout itself is well thought and since ASUS is always taking Intel's reference specifications regarding socket clearance into account, there is enough space to install large aircoolers.
The
ASUS ROG Strix Z270I Gaming comes with a
digital 10 phase power design. In general the power design on this board is more than adequate for the job at hand. It's even good for overclocking. Digging a little bit deeper into the details we find a PWM controller that's been labelled ASP1400BT, which regulates the 10 phases. Those cosist of 4C86N Dual-N-Channel MOSFETs from On Semiconductor and 10K capacitors. Overall this is a high quality power design although ASUS decided to go for a doubled phase design.
This board has been equipped with a total of two DIMM-slots. Officially supported is everything up to DDR4 4133 (O.C.). There is engough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which means that you wont encounter compatibility problems with big coolers even when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders. Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 2.0.
On the
ROG Strix Z270I Gaming the southbridge is being cooled by a
passive cooling block. A closer look at the VRM area shows
there are two more individual passive heatsinks without heatpipe again. The overall build quality of the blocks is good, which makes for a product that feels very nice, when you're holding it in your hands. In the case of the PCH heatsink ASUS has come up with a special feature. The block consists of two parts. Removing the top plate reveals a thremal pad onto which a M.2 SSD can be put to receive additional cooling.
Connectors and I/O
ASUS equipped the ROG Strix Z270I Gaming with four straight SATA ports. All of them offer 6Gbps bandwidth. There aren't any SATA Express ports but we find two M.2 slots which have been wired using four PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes each. On of the M.2 slots is hidden underneath the PCH cooler while the other one is on the back side of the motherboard. Since there is not much space available on mini-ITX motherboards to begin with ASUS created a PCH heatsink that doubles as a cooler for the first M.2 drive. Having a look around the board we don't find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons and there is no debug LED on this board as well. What you get is a MemOK button, which has proven useful in the past. ASUS decided to place a PCIe x16 slot right below the PCH. This being a miniITX motherobard removing a high-end graphics card can be tight if you're using a large heatsink.
There is a total of three fan headers on the ROG Strix Z270I Gaming which is enough, to provide a well equipped miniITX system with fresh air. The headers have been located close to the CPU as well as spread over the board. Other than that it's a good thing that all of them feature four pins, which allows for rpm regulation in BIOS as well as under Windows. Furthermore there is a plethora of additional headers you find listed below:
Lighting
- 1 x Aura RGB Strip Headers
Fan headers
- 1 x CPU Fan connector(s) (1 x 4 -pin)
- 1 x Chassis Fan connector(s) (1 x 4 -pin)
Watercooling connectors
- 1 x AIO_PUMP connector (1 x 4 -pin)
- 1 x Thermal sensor connector
Overclocking and debugging connectors
- 1 x MemOK! button(s)
Additional connectors
- 1 x USB 3.1 front panel connector
- 1 x Front panel audio connector(s) (AAFP)
- 1 x System panel(s) (Q-Connector)
- 1 x TPM connector(s)
Looking at the external connectors and buttons directly at the back-panel ASUS equipped the ROG Strix Z270I Gaming with one DisplayPort, one HDMI, one RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet connector, one USB 3.1 Type-A connector, one USB 3.1 Type-C connector, two USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, one optical audio out (S/PDIF), five audio jacks and two threads for WiFi anntennas.
BIOS
The most recent version of ASUS’s UEFI BIOS presents itself with an attractive design, and especially the new interface which called EzMode, where we can not only monitor system information, CPU and motherboard temperature, CPU voltage and DRAM status but also set system and CPU fans as well as directly change the boot priority and tune the system to different profiles, is leaving a good impression. If you wish to go back to the good old times, where you were racing through the menus hammering up and down arrows as well as the enter key ridiculously fast, you just have to press F7 and there you go. Since this motherboard features a very solid power design it is suitable for gaming and high overclocking. The BIOS features all the usual ASUS options, which allow for altering virtually anything when it comes to overclocking. Overall, there is certainly no lack of options in this BIOS.
Test setup
Hardware |
|
| Motherboard |
|
| Processor | Intel Core i7-6700K @ 4.0 GHz |
| Memory | 8 GB (2x4) G.Skill Ares DDR4-2133 CL15-15-15-2T 350 |
| Graphic card | ASUS GeForce GTX 980 |
| Driver | ForceWare 353.62 |
| Hard disk | Intel 335 Series SSD 120 GB |
| Power supply | Seasonic Platinum Fanless 520W |
| OS | Windows 10 x64 |
Preview / Gallery
3DMark
3DMark 11
3D Mark Vantage
PC Mark 08
SiSoft Sandra 1
SiSoft Sandra 2
UC Bench
Super Pi 1M - 32M
wPrime 1024M Multicore
Cinebench R15
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light
Sleeping Dogs
Power Consumption
Performance Rating
Price comparison
| Model |
Geizhals.eu |
| ASRock Z170 Extreme7+ | |
| ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme | |
| ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme Assembly | |
| ASUS Maximus VIII Gene | |
| ASUS Maximus VIII Hero | |
| ASUS Maximus VIII Impact | |
| ASUS Maximus VIII Ranger | |
| ASUS Maximus IX Hero | |
| ASUS Maximus IX Code | |
| ASUS Maximus IX Formula | |
| ASUS Z170 Deluxe |
|
| ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Aura | |
| ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming | |
| ASUS Z170-A |
|
| ASUS ROG Strix Z270E Gaming | |
| ASUS ROG Strix Z270I Gaming | |
| EVGA Z170 Classified K | |
| Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 | |
| Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Ultra Gaming | |
| Gigabyte X170-Extreme ECC | |
| MSI Z170 Gaming M7 | |
| MSI Z170A Xpower Gaming Titanium Edition | |
| MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC | |
| Supermicro C7Z170-OCE | |
| Supermicro C7Z170-SQ |
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| A closer look at the motherboard lineup from ASUS reveals that the ROG Strix Z270I Gaming is their high-end model with miniITX form factor. Therefore it comes with some really neat features, like for example ASUS's SupremeFX audio solution, Aura RGB Lightning and two M.2 slots as well as a great looking design in general. Sure the ROG Strix Z270I Gaming is a good motherboard but with a price of 196 Euro it's a little more expensive then what could be expected. Although the layout is almost perfect, we would have liked to two of the four SATA ports angled for better cable manaegment. | -
Design - Layout |
||
| Layout | + | - | |
| Overall, the ROG Strix Z270I Gaming's layout has been well thought. As we already mentioned on this page there is a total of four straight SATA ports. On such small motherboards it's not possible to use all the angled SATA connectors, since the memory would have have to be moved closer to the CPU socket. On the other hand we like the fact, that there is an internal USB 3.1 header. Unfortunately there are no practical power- and reset-buttons as well as debug LED but there is a CLR_CMOS button. Again on the plus side we have a steel-reinforced PCI Express Gen3 x16. We liked the position of the CPU socket, which allows for the installation of large air coolers. There were quite a few boards in the past, which had the socket rather close to the PCI Express slot. That meant you had to install a stock cooler or an all-in-one liquid cooler. A quick look at the back I/O panel reveals there are plenty of USB 3.1 as well as USB 3.0 ports, which in combination with the display and network connectors as well as WiFi module make for a good connectivity mix. | - Space around the CPU
socket
|
- No power/reset button and no debug LED - SATA ports not angled | |
| Performance | + | - | |
| Calculating the average of all 3D benchmarks results we ran, we see that this board scores 5th. When taking the average of all 2D results, this board comes in 1st out of 24 boards tested. On another note, we had at energy efficiency where this board scores 20th. | - 2D Performance |
- Power consumption | |
| Overclocking / BIOS | + | - | |
| The UEFI BIOS gets a black background and there are a few additional red and white design elements. Meanwhile it's almost normal that a BIOS is complete, offering countless features. If you're looking for overclocking options you'll find a great many of them and they are equally practical for novices and extreme overclockers. We always love the pre-defined profiles, which make overclocking quite a bit more efficient. Boosting our CPU to 5.2 GHz was absolutely no problem at all. | - Sheer amount of
options - Design |
||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| The ROG Strix Z270I Gaming is a well equipped Z270 motherboard. This board is also quick accourding to our 2D and 3D benchmarks we're running. At the moment this is the fifth mini-ITX Intel Z270 motherboard in our charts and in comparison with models based on the Intel's Z170 chipset it's definitely quick. We chose to use an Intel Core i7-6700K processor to be able to compare the performance with other models we've reviewed previously. This motherboard is quick and comes with a good feature set and just the price of 196 Euro is a little bit too high. | |||
| Rating | |||
| We give the ASUS ROG Strix Z270I Gaming excellent 4 out of 5 stars. | |||
